E124 - Shannon Guihan from the Travel Corporation

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Welcome back to the Green Element Podcast, where we feature business leaders and innovators transforming their operations to be more environmentally and socially sustainable. I'm your host, Will Richardson, and I can't wait to meet our guest today and help you on your journey of sustainability. Shannon, welcome to the Green Element Podcast. Thank you so much. Now, you are from the Travel Cooperation And TreadRight. I've just said that wrong, haven't I?

Nailed it. The Travel Corporation and the TreadRight Foundation. That's right. That'll do. Brilliant.

Brilliant. Having written it down. So what is it that you guys do?

Well, we travel. We are a family of brands and we are 40 travel brands. So we represent luxury hotels through Red Carnation Hotels. luxury river cruises through River, uh, through Uniworld, um, in addition to guided touring brands including Trafalgar, Insight Vacations, Luxury Gold, Contiki, and many more.

So we've, I'm, I'm, we've probably all heard as listeners, um, some of those brands that you've just spoken about because they're international, aren't they, by the sounds of it?

Absolutely. Yeah, we, we consider source markets the United States, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and beyond. Brilliant.

And what would you say your purpose was as an organization?

To make travel matter.

Could you enlarge upon that? Brilliant purpose. You can't fault it.

That was good. I never get to use that as my only answer. Absolutely. Our purpose is to deliver amazing travel experiences across multiple demographics. And we operate in 80+ countries in the world. More, I'm sure I've gotten that wrong. And an underlying critical element of our purpose is to integrate sustainability into everything that we do at the organization. The way in which we operate, the way in which we travel, and the way in which we talk to our valued, valued guests.

And when engaging your guests on sustainability, how do you go about that engagement of them? Through what kind of means? Or I mean, how do you engage your guests?

Sure. I mean, that's a process that's forever evolving. I mean, look, at the end of the day, we offer holidays. So, one must keep that in mind that this is a discretionary spend. It's something that people do to get away, if you will. But we encourage our guests not to leave their sensibilities from a responsibility perspective at home, which often unfortunately is the case in travel. So, you know, we have some heavy topics to talk about with our guests. At times. Single-use plastics, climate change, our reliance on an overwhelming number of convenience items that will never be used again. And so, what we do is we engage with what we call our TreadRight Ambassadors. So of course, there's the travel corporation, our 40 brands, and then we have a not-for-profit called the TreadRight Foundation. I oversee the foundation and the group's direction on sustainability. At the Tread Right Foundation, we have 3 ambassadors. We have Céline Cousteau. She's a filmmaker that many audiences recognize her name, I'm sure. National Geographic photographer Amy Vitale out of the US, and an Indigenous activist out of Canada called Sarain Fox. And they tell our stories through social media, through what I hope are beautiful videos. And we try to take heavy topics and bring them into, I guess, lighter delivery modes through video.

And how engaged do you think your clients are with what you do? And has that changed over the years?

I think so. I think that they have come to— by they, I think that travelers have come to expect that whatever companies that they are purchasing from, be it a product or service, have sustainability credentials that are legitimate and robust to stand on. And quite frankly, that serves me because it's a really difficult question to answer. Will travelers go with you because you're more sustainable? You know, we have a lot of stats that state that they will based on their intention. We don't see a lot of stats that say that they actually do when it comes to putting their credit card down.

It'll be interesting to see if that does change post-COVID and post what's going on at the moment.

I'm hopeful, but I don't want our business or our industry to rely on it. I think that we need to, as an industry, track towards sustainability as a matter of resiliency, not as a USP any longer.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. I think because we're— I can only speak from the UK's point of view because we're not really traveling at all, but we have seen a massive shift in the rhetoric around sustainability in the UK with any organization looking at expecting to become more sustainable and actually putting it above any other business decisions that have been made during difficult times as well. It's been difficult for a lot of organizations around the world, and they are putting sustainability at the top of the decision.

Yeah, I mean, we're seeing that in Canada as well, though. I think that people think Canada's green credentials are better than they are simply because we have so much natural space.

Hmm.

I would argue that the travel corporation, 100%, our sort of track to recovery is tracking alongside our efforts at sustainability. I would put them of equal importance, one having to make room for the other based on sort of commercial realities at any given moment. But we do see sustainability Sustainability, again, it's critical to— it's what we need to prevent another travel cessation that many organizations wouldn't, wouldn't if this happens again.

Have you carbon footprinted your organization? And would you say it's been a benefit?

It's been a task, and it's been a benefit. And it's, it's, again, another— I mean, I don't mean to throw the word critical around lightly, but it is. So absolutely, we have just recently completed the carbon footprint of our organization based on 2019 data, of course, because 2020, who wants to report on it? And it was our sort of, of course, last biggest and best year. And we have entered into an agreement with South Pole Carbon Offsetter to start building a portfolio of offsets for our business. And by our business, of course, I mean our owned assets, hotel properties, cruises, all of our offices, depots worldwide. We're taking a slightly different approach to our services because we have to. And we built a custom tool to allow us to calculate the carbon footprint per guest, per day, per brand. In fact, we're also able to drill down to per region just based on Carbon factors varying amongst regions. And that exercise was completed in the middle of COVID In fact, we just ran the numbers several weeks ago. Now we are looking at how and when amongst our brands to roll out offsets to ensure every experience is carbon neutral. Though, of course, offsets are an interim solution, aren't they?

Yeah. And so, are you looking at the reductions and what you can reduce within those organizations?

Absolutely. On our, I'll call it HQ side of things, reductions are primary. So we've nearly exhausted our solar capabilities at all of our offices. Red Carnation Hotels will be run on 50% or 100%, sorry, renewables by the close of 2021. That includes all of our London properties. So renewables are critical. Reducing and drawing down is critical. What's difficult in travel and tourism is doing that on your supply chain because, of course, the travel experience requires a number of disparate suppliers of which we have very little influence over. And so that's where offsets are really important in this business.

Yeah, I think I'm probably going to steer away from offsets because of the nature of what they are and what we feel about them as an organization personally, if that's okay. I wonder, when it comes to reducing your environmental impact and the carbon footprint of your business, what would you say your biggest single challenge has been or frustration?

I mean, I think I've just named it. The fact that what we own in terms of assets and what we can make change in, it's not a difficult proposition at the travel corporation.

Hmm.

Integrating renewables into our offices was mandated several years back and it's just been rolling through as and where we can. reducing our impact that we can control. There's no question, draw down first. But the supply chain, it's a real challenge. And I mean, let's face it, we're based on carbon— sorry, we're based on jet fuel. And that's a real challenge because you look at it, it's a conundrum.

Hmm.

And we need some We need to actually make good on the word collaboration in travel and tourism, and we need to help scale carbon capture. I mean, there's, there's— I don't have the answers with respect to technology, unfortunately, and that's a challenge.

No, it is, it is. And I can— yeah, I think, and I think that's— but I think it's not only just having these conversations, I think it's I think it's recognizing what good travel has as well in the world. I think that it's very quick to say that travel, if no one traveled, we would sure as hell suddenly become quite ignorant of each other around the world. And I think things would become quite, I would say, backward in the way that we think about each other's cultures. And travel has a massive, massive part of peace.

It does. But moreover, we also have been incredibly successful in the past 15, 20 years, and we've created a whole system of countries, destinations that are reliant on us as being mobile and visiting and supporting locally owned co-ops and restaurants. And it's a whole— it's a massive industry, and COVID's only highlighted that. So, you know, rapid travel shutdown impacts everything from animal welfare to wildlife conservation to small businesses globally. You know, most of these businesses don't run on massive war chests. They're seasonal businesses often. And they're mom-and-pops. So So yeah, the economic implications are also devastating to small communities.

Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. But then travel done correctly is a good thing for that reason alone, really.

It's a great thing.

And so, I mean, coming through COVID, how do you see what would be a good future for you within the travel industry or at your organization?

A good thing for us, I mean, we have just launched our new 5-year sustainability strategy with SMART goals that we are very, very, very active at implementing. You know, we've seen success at integrating sustainability because we focused on a business function perspective. Our sustainability efforts are proving successful because they're very, very reliant on our product and operations teams. And in our business, if you tell an operations team exactly what needs doing, rest assured it's going to get done. They're just a different breed. They get it done. Where I see value or opportunity is we We still operate in silos with respect to sustainability at the destination and travel trade distribution network side of things. So that traditional model is maintained where destinations try to sell their destination to you. You come in. Destinations still often measure success based on arrival figures rather than perhaps yield on a You know, so the measures of success at the destination level and the way that intersects with the industry needs a serious, serious look at to integrate sustainability into that. Because really what we have is several players focusing on sustainability in travel and tourism, some destinations that are focused on it, but not enough of us. And that's really where the opportunity is to see this. I don't want to have to talk about the business case anymore. I just want to get going. Let's just get it done.

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes complete sense. Do you see there's a— looking at geographically at places, do you find that there's different cultures with regards to sustainability considering you've got such a wide kind of footprint, as it were, and understanding of different geographical areas?

I mean, absolutely. The conversation is prioritized differently in a lot of different countries and regions. And it's tricky because I'm from a place where The fisheries failed us. Our natural resources failed us through terrible management, basically. And we all, you know, when I was coming up, the jobs were in tourism. My first job at 16 was a sea kayak guide. And that's— I never looked back, you know. And tourism has always been seen as a soft industry, job creator, let's get into it. And we've been successful and we've met those challenges, those needs. But not every destination has understood that, you know, there also needs to be, I guess, some checks and balances in place to ensure that, you know, a happy community is a great place to visit, right? And not everybody understands that from a destination perspective. And I think that a happy community recognizes sustainability. And, and some destinations just have other problems, basically, and they don't understand that tie, or they haven't yet prioritized that tie between sustainability and diversity and inclusion, representation, food production, all of that whole system that, that, that we might see. Um, it's still too disparate. Travel and tourism happens over here in this department.

Mm-hmm.

Everything else is totally separate. And that's a real shame to me.

And when you look at destinations and when you are designing things, is that the sort of things you take into consideration? Or is sustainability a part of the model decision-making process as to where we decide to go? Yeah, yeah.

I wouldn't say, you know, for better or worse, I would say that's still a very consumer demand-driven proposition. I would say that at our brands, the way in which we develop an experience absolutely integrates questions of sustainability. And that is directly driven by our goals. So, our brands are are now tracked against how much local and organic food that they're implementing into itineraries. And that's a KPI for them. Are now tracked against how many developing destinations in an effort to sort of spread beyond the traditional tourism hub and spoke model. And that's a way to address overtourism. And in addition to the fact that we've created a new program, Make Travel Matter Experiences, that allows us to assess a travel experience against the way in which it advances the UN SDGs. And every brand is obliged to integrate one Make Travel Matter experience on 50% of itineraries by 2025. So now you have product development teams who are fluent in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and are identifying experiences And with regards to the Sustainable Development Goals, have you brought—

many organizations are bringing the SDGs into their kind of decision-making process. And is that something that you guys have done?

Yeah, we have done. So in the early days of developing our new strategy, we did a materiality assessment to identify what issues impact us as a business, what issues impact destinations. And we added an additional layer to then state, well, what issues are prioritized by the SDGs and what tactics have they identified to help then affect change against these issues? So, the SDGs are entwined quite heavily in our new strategy.

Okay, brilliant. And if there's one thing that you want our listeners to take away from this conversation, what would that be, please?

Absolutely research who you're traveling with. It's 2020, and I maintain that if the brands that you are vacationing with are not already doing it for you, then you're vacationing with the wrong brands. There's so much that hotels can do and are not doing. And so, they need to tell you. And so, I think that there's no more power than that that's within your wallet. And I urge travelers and consumers to encourage the rest of us with their wallets.

Brilliant. Brilliant. Thank you so much for that. And how do we learn more about you and more about your organization, please?

You can visit ttc.com and take a look at our 40 brands. You can also take a look at various experiences and itineraries directly through ttc.com. And then you can go right over to the TreadRight Foundation website, and that identifies our more than 50+ community projects globally, our position on animal welfare, you know, our Make Travel Matter checklist, things that you can do before you even book your next holiday to understand how you can weave responsibility in.

Brilliant. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on. Thank you so much, Shannon.

Thank you.

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